My America
My America is a poem that examines the full range of human experience and emotion in the context of everyday places and images. From urban to rural, from the coasts to the plains, the stories are of ordinary people, their loves, their fears, and their dreams. It is “Winesburg, Ohio,” “Leaves of Grass” and “On the Road”, rolled up in one audacious and unforgettable journey.
The project came about in 2005. As Hurricane Rita approached Houston, Texas, residents were ordered to evacuate. I spent a week driving across the southeast, and, having no particular destination, took the opportunity to visit many small towns one would normally never encounter if one stuck to the major highways. From each town that I visited I came away with stories and observations that leant themselves nicely to the compact descriptive images that populate the poem. When I got home a week later, I was happy to discover not only that Rita had spared Houston entirely, but that I had about twenty stanzas of the poem that would become My America once I had developed additional images and stories from around the rest of the country. Having visited every state in the country at one time or another, it proved an enlightening and energizing exercise to imagine what extending that southeastern drive would have been like had I done it from one end of America to the other.
Every state is represented in the poem, and the quotes that begin each section are from writers who were born in each particular area of the country, including a few that run counter to common knowledge, Robert Frost for example having been born in California, though he is widely associated with New England,. The project was great fun and I strongly suspect this will not be the final edition of My America.
For a sample reading from My America by the author, click below:
My America Excerpts
My America
stands outside the nursery
at Bath Memorial Hospital,
one hand raised to the glass,
uncertain which is the one.
Already concerned
about strained carrots
and strollers
and college
and being needed.
My America
waits at a New Haven bus stop,
shoes moist
with early
morning dew.
Holds tight
to the youngest one’s tiny hand,
afraid
to let her go alone
to that first day
of kindergarten.
My America
thrashes and beats
rubber on concrete
as Newark back lot boys
slam-dunk dreams
through steel chain hoops
that jingle
in the August heat
like life flying away.
My America
stands at the corner
of Watson Street and Lee.
Gazes up
at the telephone lines
and sneakers
dangling
incongruously
in Warwick’s afternoon breeze.
My America
pumps and kicks
tiny legs against
the brilliant Darlington sky.
Makes the old tire swing
pull hard against the
fat maple branch,
its bark worn through
with generations
of laughter.
My America
works the night shift
on the Smithfield killing floor.
Wields a bloody cleaver,
cutting the throats
of three hundred hogs
every hour.
Leaves work at eleven.
Grabs a double cheeseburger
at McDonald’s
before driving home
to hug the children.
My America
sits in a dark
Louisville bar
slamming Miller Lights,
whining about pureness.
Rips and tears
at the brightly woven
dreams of foreigners
come only
to have a go of it.
To cast their die
upon the endless
green expanse.
My America
pulls into Memphis
sometime
after midnight.
Checks into the Motel 6.
Fumbles with the key card
that slides ineffectually
through the lock.
Searches madly for the remote.
Finds only the Gideon Bible.
Curses as the walls shake
next door.
My America
stops at a roadside
garden stand
an hour west of Peoria.
Carefully chooses
snap peas and wax beans.
Pours them into
wrinkled paper sacks.
Decides at the last minute
to get a quart box
of tiny silvery blueberries,
just right for corn flakes.